SUNDAY LETTERS

Recently, I wrote a letter to the Editor of Hindustan Times regarding Anbumani Ramadoss's delightfully entertaining statements concerning the Indian film industry and the adverse influence it has on the health of the Indian audience.

____

Vir Sanghvi's The Publicity Hound article (May 4th) gives a penetrating insight into the psyche of our illustrious Union Health Minister. Anbumani Ramadoss's fifth-grade arguments as to why Indian cinema should not portray actors who smoke, drink or even eat potato chips for that matter, are stupid in their entirety.

It is silly to believe that the audience would blindly mimic everything that the actors do in movies. We are sensible, capable, thinking individuals—the actors puffing cigarettes on screen definitely cannot have a drastic affect on our so-called 'impressionable' minds.

It seems attacking the movie icons is Ramadoss’s only passport to making it to the headlines, and unequivocally he has been successful. Our Health Minister should focus on more crucial concerns such as drug abuse, providing hygienic conditions in government hospitals and ensuring proper availability of medicines, and leave us to decide whether or not we should buy the next packet of chips.

*

I do intend on writing more on this topic, and shall return once I'm done tackling my entrance exams.